Sydney Smith Quotes

Quotes about:

• Whatever you are by nature, keep to it; never desert your line of talent. Be what nature intended you for, and you will succeed.

  Sydney Smith

  Inspirational, Motivational, Success

  47 Copy quote

• Life is to be fortified by many friendships. To love and to be loved is the greatest happiness of existence.

  Sydney Smith

  Love, Friendship, Happiness

  Sydney Smith, Lady Saba Holland Holland, Sarah Austin (1855). “A Memoir of the Rev. Sydney Smith”, p.178

  30 Copy quote

• Never try to reason the prejudice out of a man. It was not reasoned into him, and cannot be reasoned out.

  Sydney Smith

  Men, Religion, Trying

  5 Copy quote

• The main question to a novel is -- did it amuse? were you surprised at dinner coming so soon? did you mistake eleven for ten? were you too late to dress? and did you sit up beyond the usual hour? If a novel produces these effects, it is good; if it does not -- story, language, love, scandal itself cannot save it. It is only meant to please; and it must do that or it does nothing.

  Sydney Smith

  Mistake, Writing, Dinner

  Sydney Smith (1848). “The Works of the Rev. Sydney Smith: Three Volumes Complete in One”, p.343

  35 Copy quote

• we know nothing of tomorrow, our business is to be good and happy today

  Sydney Smith

  Happiness, Today, Tomorrow

  Sydney Smith, lady Saba (Smith) Holland Holland (1855). “A Memoir of the Reverend Sydney Smith”, p.472

  15 Copy quote

• Thank God for tea! What would the world do without tea! How did it exist? I am glad I was not born before tea.

  Sydney Smith

  Tea, Thank God, World

  Sydney Smith, lady Saba (Smith) Holland Holland (1855). “A Memoir of the Reverend Sydney Smith”, p.436

  25 Copy quote

• A great deal of talent is lost to the world for the want of a little courage. Every day sends to their graves a number of obscure men who have only remained obscure because their timidity has prevented them from making a first effort; and who, if they could only have been induced to begin, would in all probability have gone great lengths in the career of fame.

  Sydney Smith

  Confidence, Courage, Nature

  "Elementary Sketches of Moral Philosophy".

  16 Copy quote

• Resolve to make at least one person happy every day, and then in ten years you may have made three thousand, six hundred and fifty persons happy, or brightened a small town by your contribution to the fund of general enjoyment.

  Sydney Smith

  New Year, Years, Three

  7 Copy quote

• A comfortable house is a great source of happiness. It ranks immediately after health and a good conscience.

  Sydney Smith

  Happiness, Home, House

  Sydney Smith, Lady Saba Holland Holland, Sarah Austin (1855). “Letters”, p.501

  17 Copy quote

• If you want to improve your understanding, drink coffee.

  Sydney Smith

  Coffee, Understanding, Want

  Sydney Smith, lady Saba (Smith) Holland Holland (1855). “A Memoir of the Reverend Sydney Smith”, p.436

  36 Copy quote

• Have the courage to be ignorant of a great number of things, in order to avoid the calamity of being ignorant of everything.

  Sydney Smith

  Courage, Ignorance, Order

  Sydney Smith (1856). “Wit and Wisdom of the Rev. Sydney Smith”, p.198

  9 Copy quote

• The thing about performance, even if it's only an illusion, is that it is a celebration of the fact that we do contain within ourselves infinite possibilities.

  Sydney Smith

  Inspirational, Motivational, Acting

  Rolling Stone, New York, February 8, 1990.

  24 Copy quote

• Never give way to melancholy; resist it steadily, for the habit will encroach.

  Sydney Smith

  Giving, Way, Melancholy

  Sydney Smith, Sarah Austin, Lady Saba Smith Holland Holland (1855). “A Memoir of the Reverend Sydney Smith”, p.323, London, Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans

  5 Copy quote

• A man who wishes to make his way in life could do no better than go through the world with a boiling tea-kettle in his hand.

  Sydney Smith

  Men, Way In Life, Hands

  Sydney Smith, Lady Saba Holland Holland (1855). “A memoir of the Reverend Sydney Smith”, p.232

  22 Copy quote

• Find fault, when you must find fault, in private, if possible; and some time after the offense, rather than at the time.

  Sydney Smith

  Faults, Offense, Ifs

  "A Memoir of the Reverend Sydney Smith". Volume I,

  8 Copy quote

• No furniture is so charming as books.

  Sydney Smith

  Book, Reading, Furniture

  Quoted in Lady Holland, Memoir (1855)

  10 Copy quote

• Human beings cling to their delicious tyrannies and to their exquisite nonsense, till death stares them in the face.

  Sydney Smith

  Faces, Nonsense, Tyranny

  Sydney Smith (1856). “Wit and Wisdom of the Rev. Sydney Smith”, p.376

  8 Copy quote

• Avoid shame, but do not seek glory; nothing so expensive as glory.

  Sydney Smith

  Reputation, Shame, Glory

  Sydney Smith, Sarah Austin, Lady Saba Smith Holland Holland (1855). “A Memoir of the Reverend Sydney Smith”, p.88, London, Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans

  7 Copy quote

• Heat, ma am! It was so dreadful here that I found there was nothing left for it but to take off my flesh and sit in my bones.

  Sydney Smith

  Summer, August, Weather

  Sydney Smith, Sarah Austin, Lady Saba Smith Holland Holland (1855). “A Memoir of the Reverend Sydney Smith”, p.269, London, Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans

  7 Copy quote

• Marriage resembles a pair of shears, so joined that they cannot be separated; often moving in opposite directions, yet always punishing anyone who comes between them.

  Sydney Smith

  Anniversary, Marriage, Moving

  Quoted in Lady Holland, Memoir (1855)

  17 Copy quote

• Politeness is good nature regulated by good sense.

  Sydney Smith

  Army, Politeness, Good Nature

  Sydney Smith, Lady Saba (Smith) Holland Holland (1855). “A memoir of the Reverend Sydney Smith”, p.459

  8 Copy quote

• People who love only once in their lives are shallow people. What they call their loyalty, and their fidelity, I call either the lethargy of custom, or their lack of imagination

  Sydney Smith

  Loyalty, People, Imagination

  9 Copy quote

• Oh, don't tell me of facts, I never believe facts; you know, [George] Canning said nothing was so fallacious as facts, except figures.

  Sydney Smith

  Believe, Science, Facts

  4 Copy quote

• The two women exchanged the type of glance women use when there is no knife handy.

  Sydney Smith

  Funny, Knives, Two

  10 Copy quote

• He who drinks a tumbler of London water has literally in his stomach more animated beings than there are men, women, and children on the face of the globe.

  Sydney Smith

  Funny, Children, Humor

  1834 Letter to Lady Grey,19 Nov.

  10 Copy quote

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